Critical reception of Edward Hall's RSC production of Henry V
on its Stratford première last year was more or less evenly divided
between those who felt the diverse, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink staging
was overcome by a unifying power in performance, and vice versa. Seeing
it for the first time on its transfer to the Barbican, I declare myself
firmly in the former camp.

Hall fils has retained and developed some of the staging ideas
from his 1997 production of the same play at the much smaller Watermill
Theatre outside Newbury. Fighting takes place with long-handled police
batons (or, in the case of Welsh captain Fluellen, a huge, crude cudgel),
with the addition that the leaders of the French force now look on the
fetishistic side in rubber riot-police armour; as previously the English
force sang (curiously) The Pogues' song "A Pair Of Brown Eyes", so this
time the Bard of Barking, Billy Bragg, has been commissioned to write a
clutch of songs more finely toned than the bawled "Eng-er-lund!" refrain
might suggest. Elsewhere, Hall's notions run away with him: why on earth
does Princess Katharine of France seem to be entertaining the French troops
with a rendition of "La Vie En Rose", and why does she climb into her full
crinolined gown in front of this mob clad in modern-day fatigues? Elsewhere
still, ideas come together brilliantly: the "ramparts" of the Barbican
Theatre's gallery become those of the besieged Harfleur, with scaling ladders
erected against them, and under Ian Spink's movement direction a magnificent
ensemble-mimed landing craft seems to sail across the stage.

There is much to cause distraction, to be sure, but even more to hold
the attention throughout, central among which is William Houston's phenomenal
performance in the title role. He is at every moment deliberate, commanding,
a Prince Hal who has assiduously set about meeting the demands of kingship
and done so with outstanding success; if there is a fault, it is that even
at the moment where we supposedly see King Harry with his guard down and
beset with doubts, in the "Upon the King" soliloquy, Houston's rich, resonant
voice continues to sound less than spontaneous. Elsewhere, Adrian Schiller's
Fluellen is a joy; the Eastcheap contingent combine humour and disquiet
as war parasites (with Joe Renton's Nym in his Newcastle Utd shirt not
just a member of the English army but of the Toon Army), and Sandra Voe's
speech as Mistress Quickly on the death of Falstaff is a wonderfully affecting
reversal of mood amid a raucous wedding. Hall approaches the play as an
examination not just of the meanings of Englishness or Britishness, but
of nationhood in general; more to the point, he approaches it principally
as a stirring evening, if on the long side at three and a half hours.